Facebook Messenger adds free video calling for the US and 17 more countries

Facebook has announced a new update to its Facebook Messenger app that adds support for free video calls for the US and 17 other countries.

This new feature means that Facebook Messenger could be a competitor in the VoIP video market to apps such as Skype and Viber, among others. Facebook says:

You can quickly start a video call from any conversation with just one tap. If you're messaging with someone and realize that words just aren't enough, you can simply choose the video icon in the top right corner of the screen and start a video call right from within an existing Messenger conversation.

Video calling in Messenger is available for calls made from a mobile phone to another mobile phone, even if one person is on iOS and the other person is on an Android device.

Besides the US, the video calling feature for Messenger is live in Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the UK, and Uruguay. More countries and territories will be added to the list in the coming months.

Guess what FANBOY, like BBM and all the other stupid messaging services out there, MOST PEOPLE USE FACEBOOK. hell all of my friends, more than you probably will ever have, use messenger instead of texting and whatsapp and kik, It's nice to have everything in one place in a system that most EVERYONE USES. I know many, many people who have android and DO NOT use hangouts at all. I myself disabled it. I use messenger all day, and it's nice to not have to use yet another app to do video.

Exactly! This is interesting news to me. I'm the only one in my family that isn't on iOS. They don't use Skype, but they sure the heck use FB. This gives me added ability to "see" them a little more often. I'm highly greatful for this tid bit of information.

Hangouts all day everyday! I'll keep on supporting a company that pays me to use its services rather than making money off of me. I'm also going to keep encouraging people to use Google+, Hangouts and other Google services. Oh and BTFW nobody (nobody cool anyway) is using the phrase "fan-boy"anymore.

Why did the author of this article repeatedly use the word "free" to describe the video calling service? The original source never uses "free" because of course it is free. Video calling isn't some new technology that people would pay for.

"Next week, Facebook and Google+ allow you to join their social media services, absolutely free!"

Well this will really expand who I can video call to, besides apple's facetime (yuck!) there is no other service that is widely use. I mean you can get your friend to download skype but with the number of people on facebook almost everyone will have the messenger app installed on there phone. So you can easily reach them now